Liverpool were able to come back from a one-goal deficit to beat Aston Villa 2-1 last night away from home. Let's take a look at how the team performed in this win.
Defence
Aston Villa scored one goal but their xG was 1.83 - it's not a number you usually see Liverpool's opponents getting (the average xGA for Liverpool this league season per game is 1.02).
Although their only goal of the game came from an offside decision that wasn't reviewed, Liverpool can't be too happy with their defence.
Villa had nine shots across the game with four of them being on target. Alisson had to come up big to deny them two goalscoring chances as he saved Danny Ings' 1v1 effort and then parried away another shot which could have easily found a Villa player in the box.
Villa were effective at creating goalscoring opportunities from the flanks, choosing to attack down their left side a lot:
Moreover, the activity level was high in this game today as Villa, to their credit, did not just sit back and defend. They had 528 touches of the ball and here is their heatmap:
The front press caused a few issues for the Liverpool defence, with Fabinho getting yellow carded early and Alisson making a rare mistake too (which luckily wasn't punished).
Overall, we must credit Stevie G for the guts his team showed. It required some individual brilliance from Alisson and Van Dijk (who had two tackles, two interceptions and four clearances) to stop a few attacks and on another day, this game could have ended as a draw.
Rating: 5/10
Attack
Liverpool had an xG of 1.98 and scored two goals; that's the closest we have seen the expected goals match up to reality in quite some time!
The Reds took 17 shots in the game, with nine of those coming from open play and the remaining eight coming from set-pieces.
Liverpool were effective at creating goalscoring chances for most of the game and they chose to attack more from the left side, with Kostas Tsimikas having more success than Trent Alexander-Arnold:
Tsimikas created 3 key passes and completed four long balls as he was our most creative outlet of the game. Joel Matip's goal also came from a Trent corner - this was their 17th set-piece goal this league season.
Luis Diaz had an assist, Sadio Mane bagged the winner and except the first five and the last ten minutes, Liverpool were on the front foot this game. Playing without Mohamed Salah for 70 minutes, the team did very well to create good chances for themselves.
Rating: 7.5/10
